Places I Never Want to See Again: World Geography, by Clint Barton
by SamiCausti
Summary: A lot of people have misconceptions about nice places around the world. Venice. New Jersey. Brazil. I'm here to correct those misconceptions, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can talk to my bow and arrows. (A collection of one-shots about places Clint Barton hates and why. T for some language.)
1. Venice

_A/N: I let Clint tell this his way. I edited out the f-words, which displeased him - there were a lot of those - but I told him I wanted to keep the rating down a bit. And I told him it had to be more or less organized, but aside from that, I pretty much let it all go, which did please him. Has anyone ever mentioned Clint is easily sidetracked? Forgive his bunny-trails. He insisted they were all important. Also, I don't think these cities are in any particular order, really. He hates them all. With great vehemence, apparently._

1: Venice.

Most people think Venice is a beautiful city of sparkling canals, romantic historic buildings, and authentic Italian food. Don't believe them. It's a city of dark alleys and pigeon shit.

_July 7, 2002._

We're in Venice. It's about a hundred degrees, muggy as hell, and even here, in more of a residential section, away from the main tourist areas, it smells of salt water, fish, birds, and sweaty people. Natasha's on the ground, blending in pretty well but still easy to spot with that bright red hair. Damn, she's beautiful.

I'm on the rooftops, finding a perch.

This is supposed to be a fairly simple job. The target: Alessandro Moretti, international arms dealer, drug magnate, and general asshole. Interpol hasn't pegged him yet. He keeps his hands pretty clean, covers his tracks, and deals pretty ruthlessly with anyone who so much as breathes near law enforcement. And he happened to kill an undercover SHIELD operative last week in France, so we're done keeping our distance and playing patient games.

He's a dangerous target, but the job shouldn't be that hard. Nat's been assassinating men like him for years. She's already set up with a cover and an appointment – he thinks she's a powerful potential customer. She's managed to get an invitation to meet with him in his Venice home, and she should be able to do this in her sleep. Actually, I think Coulson only sent me along because last month, when Nat had a job and I didn't, I started experimenting with my arrow tips and set off the emergency sprinkler system in half the base. I didn't really ruin anything. Didn't even start any fires, really. Just made a lot of smoke and some burning smells, but it wasn't my fault. Damn wiring got screwed up. I had a good idea going. Just needs some tweaking. I'll fix it.

Anyway, I'm technically backup. But I like watching Nat work, and she does need help at unexpected moments. So I'm finding a good perch. That's not hard in this city; Venice has about a million odd-shaped rooftops at various heights. It's almost like someone was planning for me. Oh, damn, that would be scary. But they can't be, because nobody else knows we're going in on this job. Anyway, they wouldn't have had time to build a city for me even if they'd known; we got called out in a hurry on this one. The hard part of the perch-hunt is getting somewhere with an angle on Moretti's windows. I pinpointed a few decent-looking spots yesterday, but I'm still working out the exact position. Nat's lucky her setup just takes some time for techs to set up a backstory for her cover. My setup takes some actual work.

_"You set?"_ Natasha murmurs as she approaches the man's palace of a house. She's got some kind of wire instead of the usual earpiece.

I can see my perfect perch. Not far from where I am now, crouched carefully on orange roof-tiles. "I will be in a few seconds," I say, making my way toward the next roof.

Her walk doesn't even slow. Out of habit, I check her usual hiding places for any sign of weapons, but, of course, she's not carrying anything. No reason to make Moretti suspicious, and she doesn't need weapons to take down her target anyway. Nat's basically a ninja. Like, literally, she was trained by ninjas for a while.

_"I'm going in,"_ she says.

"I'll be watching," I promise. "Careful in there."

She doesn't answer. I'm always watching, and Tasha's the last person in the world who needs to be told to be careful. She's made it pretty obvious that she respects self-preservation as the strongest and most important instinct. She'll be careful, she'll be safe, and she'll come back out without any problems, leaving a dead criminal behind her. We'll be out of town before anyone knows. If we're lucky maybe we'll have time to pick up some delicious Italian food before Coulson makes us write reports on this job.

We're not really together anymore. Whatever we were, it's over now. But in the year since Natasha walked out and left me in – I'll admit it – kind of a mess on the floor, we've figured out how to just be partners. She's still my best friend. I still don't want her to die. Hell, who am I kidding? I want her back, but that's obviously not happening. So I tell her to be careful and once in a while I talk her into things like stopping for food before we leave a job, because it's good to see her relax once in a while.

This is gonna be a long wait. I'm used to that. Back in the circus, there was never a break between shots. The trick-shooting gig meant I was flipping and tumbling and jumping the whole time I was shooting. That doesn't happen anymore unless we get something wrong and wind up in an actual combat situation. These days we work more along the lines of stealth, which I guess makes sense because Natasha's got the whole professional spy thing going for her. So I've gotten pretty damn good at sitting on a rooftop in one position for a mind-deadeningly long time without losing focus.

Natasha's wire is broadcasting over the comms. It picks up the intimidating greeting from the guard at the front door, her businesslike, yet somehow sweetly persuasive tone as she talks her way inside – hell, how does the woman do that? I can barely get Coulson to let me into his office when he has coffee brewing, much less get into some gun-smuggler's mansion. _Damn_, she's good. …I mean, she has an appointment, but still….

Everything sounds pretty normal in there. I'm still working toward that perfect perch I can see, moving painfully slowly, keeping from knocking any roof-tiles loose, keeping my bow ready, my ears open, and my eyes trained on the house while I move toward that perch.

_"Ah, Miss Tremont." _The deep voice is tinny over the comms, but unmistakable.

A few more feet. These damn pigeons are _everywhere._

_"May I offer you a drink?" _he says. Whoever _he_ is. Moretti, presumably.

A hot splatter hits the back of my neck, and I can feel something warm and soupy trickling down the muscle along my spine. I freeze. Overhead, the constant warbling croon of the pigeons begins to sound malevolent. Mocking, at the very least. I'd shoot the damn things if I could, but there's something bigger happening right now. I stay still a while, hoping the pigeons will quit making such a fuss.

"You're gonna give away my position," I hiss at them, but they don't seem to care.

_"Thank you," _Natasha says. I doubt she's actually drinking whatever they give her, but accepting a drink is the polite thing to do, apparently.

Once the pigeons settle down a little, I start moving again. I can see Natasha's silhouette through the window. To me she looks tense, but I'm sure to the guys in there she looks as relaxed as she needs to. I keep my focus on her while I move toward the spot I want. The pigeons are getting worse. One of them dives at me, pecking. I swear under my breath and cover my head.

I can still hear Nat talking with Moretti. They seem to be getting along just fine. I'm pretty sure the plan is for her to get as much information as she can during the business discussion and then to inject a toxin when she shakes hands with him before leaving – something that doesn't act immediately but that moves fast when it does. Slow enough for her to get out without that muscly goon I can see suspecting anything but quick enough to prevent him taking any kind of antidote before it's too late.

Another splatter hits me – on my head this time. I can feel the warm, goopy stuff dripping through my hair and settling against my scalp. I can't help a slight shudder. I wish Nat would get the hell out of there so I can get the hell out of _here _and maybe – if I get an opportunity without breaking cover – shoot a few birds.

Just a few more feet and I'll be in that perfect place. I've got a better angle on Natasha now. She's smiling, but she still looks dangerous to me.

_"That can be arranged," _Moretti says, _"But there will, of course, be an additional fee." _That would suck, of course, except that he's gonna be dead within an hour and we're not planning on turning over any cash anyway.

Another pigeon dives at me. Those things have killer beaks. The damn birds are small enough to be completely negligible, except that those beaks are _sharp. _I take a swing at it, trying to keep my arm low enough to the roof that I don't attract attention. As soon as I move toward that perfect spot on the roof, though, three more of them attack. I swear again and cover my head as they swoop down, wings flapping, that damn cooing turning into what I swear is the pigeon version of cussing, those damn claws digging for the soft flesh at my neck. It's hard to think and move past the beaks hitting my skull, but I manage to get out a few more unpleasant names and move a little closer to the perch I want.

_"But of course," _Natasha's saying. _"I'll be in touch, then." _She stands, and so does Moretti. She's about to leave, then. _Finally. _She heads to the door as I reach the spot I wanted.

Of course. I finally make my perch, and she's ready to go.

_Damn job. Damn pigeons. Damn city._ I run a few less polite phrases through my head as I settle into the shadow of the taller roof next door to my perch. I still have to keep an eye out as Nat leaves, so I guess it's not a total waste.

More pigeon shit splatters against my shoulder, somehow managing to drip around my vest and slide under the edge of the sleeve. She needs to get the hell out of there.

I can hear her passing people. The guard at the door still seems unfriendly, but she says goodbye as if she doesn't notice. By the time I see her slip out the front door, settling sunglasses on as she leaves the house, I think this is probably the worst job we've had all year.

_"Got about a minute before he goes down," _she murmurs over the comms. Great.

"Go. I'll be behind you," I mutter. Mostly the point now is to be sure nobody takes a shot at her back while she goes. As soon as she's around that corner, I'll be off this damn roof and away from these pigeons. Damn birds are still diving at me, three or four at a time, the rest flapping around in some kind of bird-riot. It's a miracle nobody's taken a shot at me yet.

_"Get out of there, Clint," _she says.

"Coming, coming." I can slide down from here and meet her on the other side, right?

Right. A quick slide, a little tuck and roll, no big deal – _damn pigeons are still chasing me. _A whole little army of them, whirling in the air, occasionally diving, and still sometimes letting loose another round of nasty, slimy, goopy, hot, wet shit. I've given up keeping track of where all they've shat on me. This is gonna suck. Maybe I have time for a shower _before _we get picked up and I have to explain this to anyone else. Maybe I can jump in a canal before Nat sees me. Maybe –

"Made some new friends?"

Her voice startles me and I swear again and nock an arrow before thinking. When I realize it's Natasha, standing in front of me with her arms crossed, a look somewhere between disgust and amusement on her face, and her nose wrinkled at the smell, I whirl and manage to shoot three of those damn birds with one arrow. I turn back to pick it up.

"Pigeon-kebobs," she says as I return. "Not my thing."

"Shut up." I have to use my boot to push the damn birds off the arrow, and now it's filthy, and this whole job is hell and fell to shit – literally, but the pun isn't funny at the moment because the damn stuff is running all over me and drying in places and getting crusty and I swear I hate every damn pigeon ever hatched – and we should get out of here.

"Didn't know pigeons were mobbing birds," Nat says. "They recognize a hawk?"

I glare. "Damn birds hate me. Stupid birds. Let's go."

She smirks. "You're wearing pigeon poop," she says.

As if I don't already know this. Annoyed, I reach for her. Hell, if I have to wear pigeon shit, she might as well have to as well. Maybe it'll be slightly satisfying to see some of this shit on her, too. But Natasha knows martial arts I've never even heard of, and ducking away from me is easy for her, and that's just more annoying.

"Let's go," I repeat. The hell with dinner. I just want a shower. I'm pretty sure there's blood on the back of my neck from those damn birds.

"Sure you wanna leave your new buddies?" she asks.

I glare, manage to smack the bloodied arrow against her bare upper arm, and start off toward our extraction point. "Shut up. Let's go. I hate this city. Venice sucks."


	2. Princeton

_A/N: This is concept credit to the _House, M.D. _episode "Games" (s4,e9) and this headcanon I have in which every Jeremy Renner role is some form of Clint Barton undercover._

2: Princeton

You might not even know where this is. Keep it that way. It's a damn rainy shithole in New Jersey full of rude junkies, ruder doctors, and the worst cell phone service I've ever had, with the possible exclusion of that damn trip to Antarctica.

_November 4, 2007_

I'm supposed to be on stage.

I'm supposed to be wearing these tight jeans and this caked-on eyeliner in front of a hundred raving, crazy-drunk fans who probably hate my guts and are just too wasted to know it.

I'm supposed to be making mind-blowingly bad music with this little group of strung-out wannabes.

"I'm not a musician," I told Coulson when he gave me the case file.

"Neither are these guys," he said. "You'll fit right in."

"I don't do drugs," I said.

"You will," he said. "Then we'll detox you."

I have a shitload of drugs in me by now. I'm supposed to be on stage anyway, slamming on that damn guitar and belting something that vaguely resembles lyrics into a dirty microphone.

Instead I'm in a damp, dark alley behind a cheap club, clinging to a filthy, graffiti-covered dumpster and puking up my own blood.

These guys – this band, or whatever the hell they think they are – they're as strung out as I am, half drunk already, completely useless. And one of them's pissed cause I slammed his new guitar into the corner of the dumpster. After I slammed it into the ground. Before he slammed it into my jaw. Point is, they're useless right now. If they could get me on stage like this, they'd probably make me perform for the gig anyway. Hell, they'd probably convince those wasted fans in there that me spewing blood is just a performance trick, like eating bats or smashing guitars.

I think they're already inside without me.

Damn them all.

I hope the transmitter they put on me's picking up all of this. I hope Coulson's getting the full effects of me swearing and retching back here. It's his fault. Damn job. Damn drugs.

Hell, I need a cigarette. But I don't think I could smoke it right now if I had one. It's getting hard to see, the neon glare from the half-open door fading away. Those guys might be grabbing me to take me to a hospital. Or something. Maybe they've left me already. I can sort of see the door. It's shut.

I wake up in a hospital.

I _hate _waking up in hospitals. I hate hospitals. I hate IV tubes and beeping machines and sterile-smelling sheets and these damn hospital gowns. I want my vest. I want my bow. _Damn _I want a blunt.

"We're pulling you." Coulson's voice.

I cuss him seven ways to hell before I bother twisting my head around enough to see him. He doesn't seem surprised or offended, standing there in that damn suit and tie, crisp and clean and straight, holding a file in one hand and a pen in the other.

"They're working on stabilizing you now," he says. "We'll get our information a different way."

"Hell no you don't," I mutter. _Damn _my throat hurts. Everything hurts. My eyes are burning. My head aches. "'m finishing the damn job."

Coulson doesn't even blink. "Out of the question. You're too sick."

"The hell's wrong with me anyway?" Besides needing a little chemical help. This damn drug addiction was _his _idea, not mine.

He shakes his head once, minutely. "We don't know. They're still running tests. The drugs in your system make it harder to narrow down."

I swear again and jerk the IV out of my arm. "'m fine. Get me back in there."

Coulson pokes his head out the door briefly. "Get me Dr. Jackson and…." I miss the end of whatever he says; his voice lowers like he doesn't want me to know.

"I swear Coulson, if you sedate me…."

He returns his attention me, takes a couple steps closer to the bed and looks down at me. "You're pretty sick, Barton."

"Dammit, Coulson, _you _put me in there for months with those guys and that damn guitar and those damn cigarettes and needles and joints and whatever the hell else. Lemme finish the damn job. And get me something to smoke before I puke on your shiny frigging shoes."

Some prick in a white lab coat and a stethoscope wrapped around his neck comes in and grabs my arm.

"There," he says soothingly as he slides the needle back into my wrist. "That's better."

I wonder whether I can strangle him with the stethoscope before Coulson can stop me, but my muscles feel slow. I can see the doctor out of the corner of my eye after he moves away. He injects something into the IV tube. I'm halfway done swearing at him when the hazy black spots in front of my eyes grow big enough to swallow me.

"Whurthehell am I?" is the first thing I manage to say when I wake up. Everything's confusion. People. Lights. White coats and blue rubber gloves. It's hard to think straight.

"Emergency room – Princeston-Plainsborough Teaching Hospital." That's Coulson again. "You want to stay on the job, you've gotta get healthy first. Stay under cover. Don't hurt anybody."

"Yeah, yeah," I mumble. "Gimme a cigarette before you go." I dunno what they did with the clothes I was wearing, but they must have them somewhere, and I want a cigarette. I want one _now_.

"You're in a hospital. Smoking is a federal offense. I've gotta go."

I manage to grab his sleeve. "Damn you, Coulson, you got me hooked on the things. Post bail. Tell them I got diplomatic immunity."

"Just behave for a while, Barton."

"I'm under frigging cover, dammit," I grumble. "Jimmy Quidd would have a cigarette. Gimme a cigarette."

Jimmy Quidd's my cover story. He's an unpredictable, rowdy, smoking bastard who likes to piss people off sometimes for no reason and wouldn't be caught dead without a pack of smokes.

Coulson gives me one.

Then for a while it's all crazy. Nurses – doctors – everyone running everywhere. They inject me with things, ask me stupid questions – my name, how old I am, what drugs I do – but not too many questions. Coulson musta sorted things out already.

This damn hospital sucks. Everything sucks. But the nicotine helps a little. Still, I get shoved in a bed, hooked up to machines and some damn IV drip, and left there. Cause that's how hospitals are supposed to work, right? Emergency room – "hey, we'll just hook you up to some drugs and leave you to rot alone in a damn hospital gown."

Eventually I give up on that whole prompt attention thing. Maybe I shoulda stayed back on base. Let this damn job go to hell.

"Hey!" I yell finally. Jimmy Quidd – he's a real pain in the ass. I'm just staying under cover. "Who do I have to grope to get some turn-down service in here?" Yeah, that should do it.

It works. The curtain jerks back. Two doctors. That pretty one who took away my first cigarette and scolded me for asking for a light. I try to smile at her. And some doctor I haven't seen before. I don't think. Older guy with a cane who needs a shave.

"Jimmy Quidd," the pretty one says. "He is a punk rock singer." She sounds pretty skeptical. Hell, I'm skeptical. But Jimmy Quidd's sure.

"Punk rockstar to you," I mutter. She looks unimpressed, which I find vaguely insulting. The other doctor's looking at my charts. I have no idea what they say. Coulson must have made up some kind of medical history for me. Or something. I dunno.

The doctor spews out a bunch of medical-sounding terms. I understand "trauma," "self-cutting," "fever," "chest," "fatigue," and "urine." It all sounds pretty gross to me. It's kind of weird, disassociated; it's hard to realize they apply to me. The pretty doctor starts going off about all the drugs on my test results. I do a little of everything – or at least, Jimmy Quidd does.

"The only mystery here is how he made it to be thirty-eight," she finishes off.

"I'm twenty-eight," I grumble, forgetting for a minute that I'm supposed to be Jimmy Quidd. I manage to find another cigarette. _Hell _this job sucks.

"And he lies," she says. She notices the cigarette. "And he's a pain in the ass." Damn straight I am. I think. I want my cigarette back, but she keeps it away from me.

"Wrap him up," the other doctor says. "I'll take him to go."

I have no idea what the hell he's talking about, but dammit, I want that cigarette. As he leaves, I decide enough is enough. IV's and monitor leads are easy to rip off, though that pretty doctor doesn't seem to see it my way. There's some vague satisfaction in the fluids from the IV drip spraying all over her as she tries to stop me.

* * *

This whole damn job sucks. The crappy music. The gigs. The drugs. I'm supposed to be doing some recon at the clubs we have gigs in. There's something going down. I dunno. Stuff SHIELD's supposed to be involved in. Or something. I don't really remember or care right now. I have headaches and I feel nauseous. Damn withdrawals from the drugs and the nicotine fits and …_hell_ this sucks. Shoulda taken Coulson up on that offer. Stayed in SHIELD's hospital. The hell with this place. The hell with that damn doctor. House – that's what they call him. He thinks I'm some kinda game. Got some five or six doctors looking at me. All of them arguing about me. In front of me. Damn rude.

One of them – one of the girls – Amber, they call her – she's got a real thing about the drugs. Anything that happens, anything goes wrong, she says it's cause of the drugs. Maybe I'd agree if I were her. I dunno. This whole thing is hell. I mean, maybe I'd hate me too, if I had to take care of me trying to light a cigarette in a bathroom with an oxygen tank – I mean, I didn't think that one through. _Damn _that cigarette was good for half a second though. I dunno what happened. Explosion, I guess. Fire and oxygen. Damn hard to think in this place. They keep putting me through stupid tests. Shit's all going to hell. The only good thing about this job was those kids – used to go hang out with some kids at a shelter sometimes. Abandoned kids. They were good kids. Fun. Only good thing about the damn job.

Coulson comes to see me at some point. Wakes me up.

"You set off an explosion in a bathroom because you were smoking," he says.

"Damn straight," I mumble. Dunno how he even got in. I'm supposed to be undercover. "Damn doctor's gonna kill me."

"You're not doing well, Barton," he says.

"Shuddup. I'm fine."

"Heard about the nicotine patches," he says.

I laugh. Then I cough.

They put a nicotine patch on me – I was shaking too much to do tests, they said. Whatever. But it helped. A little. Damn nic fits were killing me. And I'm a damn SHIELD agent. So I sneaked away. Found their supply. Plastered the damn things all over. One's good, all of them should be better. And hell, those headaches and tremors were killing me. Doctors threw a fit, of course.

"Worked," I mutter. "Nobody saw me. Gonna gimme a smoke?"

"No."

"Go to hell," I mutter. If he's not gonna be useful, might as well let me sleep.

"Dammit, Coulson, they're killing him," I hear when I start to wake up. Natasha. I'd know her voice anywhere, even through this haze of drugs and disease and whatever the hell else it is. I manage to force my eyes open at the sound. "Why the hell is he still here? Get him out. Get him better."

"Dr. House is the best diagnostician in the country," Coulson says. "We don't know what's wrong with Barton, and he's probably better off here than anywhere else."

"That doctor is an asshole who doesn't care if Clint lives or dies." Natasha's talking in that calm tone – the one that means she's about ready to murder somebody. Damn, I hope it's not me.

"He's idiosyncratic," Coulson agrees. Hell if I know what that means – "but he's brilliant. We're keeping an eye on the situation."

"I swear, Coulson, if he dies here, I'll break every bone in your body."

"Noted," he says. He doesn't sound worried by her serious tone of voice.

"Nat." I manage to get her name out. I'm a mess. I know it. All sores and bruises and that damn oxygen mask and I've lost a ton of weight and I must look like hell. But Natasha's my partner. She's seen me worse. Maybe.

She comes over by the bed. She's trying not to look worried; I can tell. I know her too well. Lately it's been difficult to tell whether I'm acting like Clint Barton or Jimmy Quidd. We're getting mixed up in my mind. I identify with Quidd, I think. Coulson says you should never identify with a cover strongly enough to confuse your own identity, but I think I can blame the drugs for this if I really have to. Quidd's a decent guy, deep down. Just not what people want him to be. No family; scant respect for his chosen profession, if you can call that awful music in rundown clubs a profession; just wants to live his life. And likes those abandoned kids at the shelter. So do I.

"Played with the kids," I mutter.

Natasha's standing over me, arms crossed. "I know," she says. "Heard you passed out on the floor."

I try to grin. I did pass out on the floor, but it was okay. I think. I mean, I was in the damn hospital before that. Still in the hospital. No change there.

"Kids liked it," I say.

"Doctors didn't," she answers immediately. "Hell, Clint, what'd you do this time?"

She's worried. I wish she would quit worrying. It's harder not to care when Nat's worried. I swear. "Got a smoke? Haven't had a damn cigarette in…" Hell, how long has it been? I dunno.

"Dammit, no," she says. "This what happens when they send me off on my own and try to stick you undercover by yourself? Hell." I try to reach for her and then drop my hand.

"Splitting up partners," I mutter. "Hell of an idea. _Damn _I want a cigarette."

"Shut up," she says. "Get better. Get back. I hate the guy I'm supposed to work with till you get back. Hurry the hell up."

I nod, sleepily because I remember that I didn't want to be awake right now anyway. "Be fine," I mumble.

* * *

The doctor's a strange one. House, I mean. He hates my music – more or less said so, which doesn't offend me, because hell, I said I wasn't a musician – but he keeps blaring it. Acts like he doesn't care if I live or die, but keeps trying to fix me – guess that's his job, but still. Treats his team like…hell, I dunno what even.

"I don't play for an audience," I tell him. It's true. I play cause that's the cover. I don't really even play. Just slam on the strings and belt out words and hope nobody realises I'm anything but a punk rockstar. Punk, maybe. Natasha tells me I'm a punk kid who never grew up. She's probably right. But that's not the point.

"Well then," House says, "that stage you stand on is an odd choice."

Dammit. I'm supposed to be in character. I pull a lie out my ass.

"I do it for me, okay? I don't do it for you." Not very specific, but it sounds like the kinda thing Quidd would say. Hell, I dunno how to handle this guy. I just want out of the hospital. Finish the damn job. Get back to base. Quit having these damn withdrawals.

* * *

They figure it out eventually. After they nearly kill me a few times with their attempts to fix me. Damn doctors. Making damn guesses about people's lives. I should let Natasha hunt them down. She wants to. I could tell, sort of, when she was here. I think. I was pretty doped up, but still. Damn doctors. After they put me through every medical test known to man, took away all my cigarettes – and the drugs that guy from the band was gonna sell me when he came – nearly killed me – after all that they tell me it's measles.

In my brain.

Hell if I know how that works, but they say they're fixing it. That doctor, the one who hates me cause of the drugs and the exploding oxygen tank with the cigarette in the bathroom incident, she comes into my room. It's night. She looks upset. Hell if I know why.

"You're gonna have to grow old after all," she says when she notices I'm awake. "You've got measles. We're blasting you with corticosteroids."

Whatever the hell that is. I was planning on growing old. Or at least outliving this. Even if he didn't bring me more cigarettes, Coulson's a decent guy. Gave me a chance. I can't let Natasha break all his bones. She was serious about that, I think. But I'm still Jimmy Quidd, so I can't tell that doctor that I was gonna live anyway by way of sheer stubbornness.

"What's wrong with you?" I say instead.

"I got fired."

Damn. Probably for letting me make a mess with that oxygen tank. But hell, she was a shitty doctor. "What are you doing here?" Be just my luck if she went psycho from getting fired and came to kill me in revenge or something. Luck hates me.

"Trying not to care," she says.

Doesn't make sense. I told her I don't care about things, that it makes for living with no regrets, but hell, that wasn't me. That was Quidd. That's the kinda thing he'd say. Me? I care. Care about this damn job. Care about living to get out of this hellhole of a hospital. Care about Coulson staying alive despite my vindictive partner. Care about my damn vindictive partner even if half my scars came from her.

"Yeah," I mutter. "Yeah, that's not easy."

She sort of laughs. I dunno if I said the right thing or not, but she leaves me alone after that.

* * *

Coulson wants to have a short briefing of some sort before I get back to making the world's worst music.

"Measles," he says. Like it's some kind of important.

"Damn measles," I mutter. My head feels weird, hair all shaved off like it is. I still feel like hell, and I'm gonna be back to too many drugs and a pack a day by sundown. I want a drink.

"You never had the immunization? Never had them as a kid?" He's flipping through my file, frowning.

"Dammit, Coulson, _you _gave me all the immunizations I ever got," I remind him. I light my cigarette, draw that first breath, let my eyes close for a moment. I feel a little calmer already.

Coulson keeps frowning at the file. Finally he closes it. "You're gonna have to find a healthier stress reliever after this job," he says, looking pointedly at the cigarette.

I shrug. "Whole damn job sucks," I say. "Get the damn briefing over. Get the job over. I hate this city. Princeton sucks."


End file.
